It’s time to unlock the potential of 5G for digital economy development in Vietnam

Imagine a thriving economy in Vietnam, where we sit at home and speakers can deliver presentations remotely. All of this becomes possible through 5G technology. Governments, service providers, telecom operators, and society all have huge opportunities ahead and they can realise such a vision. To realise that, we need to work together to build an ecosystem and accelerate the digital transformation process.

Rita Mokbel, president, Ericsson Vietnam

Digital transformation also needs a universal solution to solve global problems. It provides us and supports governments and societies to unleash their potential, supports solution providers to develop the digital economy such as cloud computing and AI. We believe that one of the most important factors for such transformation is connectivity.

Research conducted by Ericsson shows that a 10 per cent growth in mobile broadband would increase GDP by about 0.08 per cent.

Governments of countries are investing in physical infrastructure such as highways and seaports to develop the economy as they do today. We also see that governments and societies are investing heavily in 5G infrastructure as a “digital superhighway” to promote economic development.

When people think of 5G, they think of broadband internet or a mobile broadband system, but the truth is, the power of 5G goes far beyond connection speeds, especially when combined with cloud computing and AI. For example, remote surgery is already using robotic arms with the high connection speeds and ultra-low latency of 5G networks so that data can be transmitted in real time and there is no delay between the surgeon making the move and the robotic arm at the far end.

AI and cloud computing technologies will be deployed on a larger scale when 5G becomes widely commercialised. To implement this, the role of the government is essential to build a policy framework as well as remove barriers, supporting network operators to deploy 5G at both scale and speed. We see that, in Vietnam, the government is strongly supporting telecommunications network operators, in which the government considers 5G as an important national infrastructure to accelerate the digital transformation process in Vietnam, promoting the digital economy.

There are many countries pioneering in the deployment of 5G, including India and Malaysia. The Indian government is deploying 5G aggressively and quickly, with 454,000 5G base stations in around 21 months. They have now achieved 5G coverage of over 90 per cent of the population, and India currently has over 220 million 5G subscribers.

This means that India has moved from 86th to 16th position in the global ranking for 5G network performance. In India, 5G is now considered as a critical national digital infrastructure and the Indian economy could benefit by $455 billion by 2040 as a result.

In Malaysia, with the support of the government, the country has also covered more than 80 per cent of the population with 5G, one year ahead of schedule, and is in the top three countries in the world in terms of 5G deployment as well as 5G network performance. Malaysia believes that 5G will contribute $28-35 billion to the country’s digital economy from now until 2030.

5G is providing a competitive advantage to pioneering countries and is driving economic development. We hope that these impacts will be realised in Vietnam. Currently, Vietnamese network operators have begun to deploy the stages for commercial operation after being allocated frequencies. It is possible that 5G will be commercially available in Vietnam before the end of this year. Our customers are telecommunications network operators, and we are ready to cooperate with them to bring 5G benefits to them.

For consumers, 5G brings benefits such as enjoying better quality distance education, faster connections, interactive gaming, and better video quality experiences.

According to our study, telecommunications operators will increase customer satisfaction by 10 per cent with 5G compared to previous generation mobile network technologies. The benefits of 5G are not only limited to regular subscribers, but there will be many benefits for businesses when deploying 5G. There are many opportunities for society, for telecommunications operators because telecommunications operators will access new market segments such as the enterprise market segment.

For businesses, when telecommunications operators provide private 5G networks for businesses, business operations will be faster, more flexible, cost-efficient, improved reliability thanks to the better connectivity of 5G.

Looking at specific examples, factories using 100 per cent renewable energy with 5G deployment could increase labour productivity by 20 per cent, and reduce labour effort by 65 per cent. 5G brings benefits to fields such as airports, seaports, healthcare, manufacturing, and many others. Specifically, when we look at the Vietnamese market, we believe that we can transform the healthcare sector from direct services to online services.

The industry that benefits the most from 5G is manufacturing in industrial parks in Vietnam. 5G helps businesses automate and modernise. In addition, it also improves competitiveness and skills, and will thus serve to attract more investment to Vietnam.

For telecommunications operators, with 5G, they can build new use cases. With 4G, many new applications have been developed such as Uber, Grab, Facebook, and Instagram. With 5G, there will certainly be more innovations and new applications that require high speed and low latency.

In addition, fixed wireless access is also a model that is increasingly used in Vietnam and globally. According to our forecast, fixed-line subscription is expected to increase to 330 million subscribers by 2029.

One of the 5G use cases is digital transformation in enterprises through private network, which will be very suitable for enterprises in many different industries. This will be a new opportunity and source of revenue for telecommunications carriers when they provide connectivity solutions for enterprises.

Network operators have only focused on individual subscribers, but with 5G, they can reach a new market, which is enterprises, digitising them. From there, they can create new revenue sources. Moreover, telecommunications networks will become the platform of innovation when they open the new 5G platform to application solution developers.

We have signed MoUs with leading telecom operators in Vietnam to support them to open 5G infrastructure through open APIs, so that Vietnamese telecom operators can allow solution developers and their partners to connect APIs to the 5G network to come up with new, more innovative solutions.

In September, we launched a partnership programme with telecom operators globally, where we will accelerate the programmable open network, which can combine APIs and semi APIs to operators for development. They can connect APIs to operators’ 5G infrastructure to develop new applications. In the near future, I believe that you will see the huge innovation power of the 5G API open ecosystem.

Ericsson can support customers in Vietnam as well as around the world. Currently, there are more than 200 commercial 5G networks worldwide, of which Ericsson supports the deployment of 166 networks, and more than half of the world’s 5G technology platforms run on Ericsson’s infrastructure.

We were honoured to be selected and become a partner of telecommunications carriers in Vietnam. First, we support telecommunications carriers in the transition from 4G to 5G; and in the long term, to a pure 5G network.

We also work with network operators to accelerate the transformation and create opportunities for them to learn from successful experiences and use cases in other countries, thereby developing their own applications for the Vietnamese market. To achieve that, we also need a suitable workforce with suitable capability.

Therefore, Ericsson is now cooperating with a number of Vietnamese universities to build training programmes to help students access the latest technologies such as 5G, blockchain, AI, and cloud computing, among others, so that they can promote innovation and write new applications for the local market.

Currently, Vietnam is at a critical moment in the development of the digital economy. I believe that 5G will significantly support the transformation process in Vietnam, promoting the growth of the digital economy. We are committed to supporting the government, the Ministry of Information and Communications, and telecommunications operators in this journey. In addition, together with partners, we will build an ecosystem to help the Vietnamese government realise its digital economy goals, and thus attract more foreign investment.